Bronny James is the most controversial player in NBA
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For 4 months, I have sat back and watched, watched the NBA world and community plunge into chaos.
Bronny was inescapable.
If we take a look at second round picks in their first year, so many end up not playing or ending up in the G-League.
And that’s totally fine. That’s the process. We aren’t looking at a second round pick as an NBA ready player. We’re looking at a second round pick with the potential to eventually become one.
But let’s get this out of the way first, you might be wondering, do I think Bronny is an NBA player? I don’t think he was ready to be drafted, I do think he has the potential and would have earned it playing one more year in college.
Because now he’s going to hear the “you’re only in the league because of your dad” and that sucks, but were people that bored in preseason that you need this many videos about Bronny? (*show several videos about Bronny in an animation, scrolling down the several videos by* https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=awful+coaching+bronny+james, **And not just one video breaking down his performance throughout the preseason, no, one for every game and on both sides of the extreme.
Bronny is better than 95% of us would ever be, just low for the NBA level, saying he’s a useless basketball player is just irresponsible.
I guess fair enough, people trying to eat and since this is potentially the most minutes we’re going to see from him this entire season, but evaluating talent on just this is uhhhh unfair. And it didn’t stop there.
And it’s not just creators, no it’s ESPN, house of highlights, bleacher report, undisputed.
In fact, the second round of this year’s draft was moved to an entirely different day. Whether that was in the works before or not, it looks awfully suspicious.
Yes the NBA needs to adapt to maximize but they also need to understand the sentiments of the fans. We’re here for moments like this.
But we can look at more recent examples. Jayson Tatum of the Celtics was pushed to be the next super star and he was, but Jaylen Brown was neglected, to the point that even when they won the finals, the camera barely cut to Brown and rather focused completely on Tatum even when Brown was the one that won MVP. Part of this is guess work, trying to figure out which players are the ones to promote, to invest in the build into the next faces. However, at times the NBA has chosen to not invest in a bit of the obvious like this year.
Having this much focus on Bronny only highlights what a horrible job they’ve done marketing the other players in this draft besides Yuki Zach Edey combo. Have you seen single clip breaking down Alex Sarr the number one pick in this year’s draft? He played 22 minutes in his debut and scored 2 points going 0 of 5 from 3. Reed Shepphard barely touched the floor in his last two games, playing a combined 9 minutes. And on the flipside, Dalton Knecht has had some good moments but overshadowed by Bronny.
But his contract is another story, blatantly showing favoritism by the organization and it becomes obvious when you look at second round draft pick contracts.
All NBA contracts have a portion of the contract that is guaranteed similar to NFL, except a majority of contracts are 100% guaranteed. This isn’t the case for second round picks.
Bronny signed a 4 year 7.8 million deal, of which 4.35 million was guaranteed.
But the 3 draft picks ahead of him, Anton Watson, Cam Spencer, and Quinten Post all signed two way contracts for 1 year $578,577. Bronny’s agent and LeBron’s friend Rich Paul steered teams away from any two way contracts. Weird that a 55th round pick had that power.
This was supposedly so Bronny could also be available for the Lakers in the playoffs as two ways aren’t playoff eligible. But even with second round picks that sign full contracts, they don’t typically have more than 50% guaranteed.
In 2023, the Lakers did sign their second round pick Maxwell Lewis to a 4 year $7.6 million, but only with a $3.1 million guarantee and he was the 40th pick in the draft, 15 spots ahead, which if we look at this year signed a 4 year $7.8 million deal. A 40th pick contract is different than 15 spots later, similar to how first overall pick makes 4 year $57 million and the 16th pick makes 4 year $19 million. So Bronny has a contract of someone 15 picks ahead despite already being a questionable draft pick.